


Friends Don't Get Engaged

by angelsfalling16



Series: FDF [2]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, Idiots Pining, Idiots in Love, Lack of Communication, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, SnowBaz, but it's more like, deNiall, fake engagement, or something like that, yes more bed sharing because they can't seem to stay away from each other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2020-06-26 12:12:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19767958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelsfalling16/pseuds/angelsfalling16
Summary: Plans are well under way for Simon and Baz's wedding, but to Simon, it feels as though everything is spinning out of control. The engagement was supposed to end months ago, but instead, Baz and Penny are planning the most extravagant wedding he's ever seen. What happens when Simon has had enough of all of it? Will Simon and Baz be able to make up, or will this be it for them?Sequel toFriends Don't French-Kiss





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Parts of this fic will be told through flashbacks, and those will be italicized to try to make it less confusing.

**Baz**

_Simon gets down on one knee, and it’s like the breath has been knocked out of me. What does he think he’s doing?_

_I reach out to grab his arm, but he pulls it out of my grasp._

_“What are you doing?” I ask him, trying to stay quiet enough that no one else will hear._

_“You may have been the better boyfriend, but I’m about to show you that I’ll be the better fiancé,” he says in the casual way that someone might tell you they’re going to go wash the laundry, and he’s got that wild glint in his eyes that he gets right before we start fighting._

_“Why are you doing this?” I hiss, trying to put a stop to it before he does something that can’t be easily undone._

_He shrugs. “Why not? Are you afraid that you’ll lose?”_

_“Of course not.” I’m more afraid that this will kill me._

_“Great. Let’s do this.”_

_He glances around us, but I keep my eyes on him, disbelieving of what he’s doing. This has to be a joke, a really cruel joke, and I’m not sure what I did to deserve this. To deserve Simon asking me to marry him but not meaning it._

_It’s simultaneously a dream come true and my worst nightmare._

_“Baz,” he says softly, and just from that one word, I know that I’m screwed. He raises his voice as he continues so that others will hear him._

_“This may seem like we’re moving too fast, but I know how I feel about you. I’m in love with you, and even though we’ve spent years fighting, I’ve also spent years slowing falling for you. I love everything about you, even the things that you don’t like to show most people. We spent so much time apart when we could have been together, and I don’t want to be apart from you for another moment.”_

_As he speaks, I can feel myself breaking inside, wishing that he wasn’t saying any of it. How can he say those things and not mean it? How can he lie to me (and everyone else) about being in love with me?_

_He sounds so sincere, and for a moment, I’m back to feeling how I did last night when I was sure that he was going to tell me that what he felt was real. Right before he said he wanted to end things. He fooled me then, and he’s fooling me now, making me believe that this is real._

_I feel tears burning behind my eyes, and I can’t tell whether it’s because of what he’s saying or because of how angry I am that this is just a competition to him, that it doesn’t mean a thing to him. He’s just playing with my feelings, and I’m letting him. Maybe I’m just angry at myself for letting this continue._

_“I don’t have a ring, but Baz Pitch, will you marry me?” He finally asks the question, and I give him the answer that I would give him if he were to ask me for real._

_“Yes,” I say, but it comes out quieter than I mean it to. I clear my throat, making sure the tears are gone and say it again. “Yes, Simon, I’ll marry you.”_

_People start clapping, but I don’t care about that. My focus is all on Simon as I reach down to pull him up to his feet._

_He’s got this crazy grin on his face, and it’s impossible to believe that he didn’t mean what he just said._

_His hands come up to cup my face, and I reach out to pull him closer._

_“I can’t believe that you did that,” I tell him, unable to believe that I let it happen or that I said yes._

_“Neither can I,” he replies, and I know that he means it. That wasn’t planned. None of this was. That’s why this is all so confusing. None of this was supposed to happen, and I’m pretty sure that Simon feels the same way._

_He leans forward and kisses me, and my knees nearly buckle from the force of it. We’ve kissed before, but it was never like this. This...this is different._

_This is something akin to how I imagined a true love’s kiss would feel. (You know, if I actually believed in true love.)_

_As he kisses me, it’s like I feel whole. Nothing else in the world matters._

_But then he’s pulling away from me, and I’m forced to come to my senses. It wasn’t real. Or maybe it was, but Simon would never admit to that._

_Even if he did have feelings for me, he could never tell me because he’s the Chosen One. He can’t be seen dating his vampire roommate for real._

_We exchange a few more words, nothing that really means anything, before I pull him tight against me, wishing I never had to let him go._

_He places a soft kiss to the side of my face, and something inside of me tells me that he isn’t faking this. There’s a reason that he changed his mind about breaking up with me. I just have to get him to tell me in a way that doesn’t turn into a confrontation._

_I may need some help with that._

***

“Baz,” Bunce says beside me, snapping me out of my reverie. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” I assure her. “I was just thinking about something.”

I turn back to the magazine in front of me, looking over the various flower arrangements, as I rest my head on my hand, my elbow digging into my knee.

Simon is still asleep, so it’s just me and Bunce flipping through catalogues and magazines. It’s still rather early, so I’ve decided to let him sleep some more. He’s not very much help with this anyway, and I know that it won’t help things to wake him up unless I plan to bring him breakfast in bed.

It’s been months since Simon proposed, and now, I’m planning our wedding. Well, Bunce and I are planning mine and Simon’s wedding. I wouldn’t have been able to get through this without her help.

She has helped with more than just the wedding planning, but as I look around the room, at the mess we’ve made in the flat that she shares with Simon with magazines and lists and fabric samples, I can see that somewhere along the way, we got carried away. Something went wrong.

This engagement was supposed to be over a long time ago. We were never supposed to get to the actual wedding planning stage of it.

It’s been a couple of weeks since we left Watford, and I had been hoping that this would all be over before Christmas break.

Simon keeps telling me that I have to be the one to decide when we should end this, but I keep waiting and waiting for something that doesn’t seem to be coming.

I was hoping that Simon would have told me how he felt about me by now, but I’ve begun to think that I was wrong. He doesn’t feel the same, and this has all truly just been a competition to him.

I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to think that everything we’ve done has been fake. It never once felt that way after he proposed, but there was always a part of me that was determined to remember that it wasn’t real, to hang on to a bit of reality.

No matter how hard I try to forget and just be in the moment, all I can do is remember that this isn’t what I want.

I want something real with Simon. I want something that I can never have.

Even Bunce believed that there was something real there, and we’ve been working on letting Simon take his time to admit it to himself and then us, but so much time has passed. Perhaps too much time.

Maybe it’s time for me to just give up.

**Simon**

When I wake up and hear Baz and Penny conversing in the living room, I already know that today is going to be a long one. I head straight to the kitchen, bypassing the living room, knowing that I’m going to need some food in me if I’m going to make it through this.

I make myself some tea and toast, which I add extra butter to since neither of them is in here to stop me, and I eat it slowly, putting off joining them for as long as possible. A part of me wants to go climb back in bed, but I’ll have to face them eventually, so after I finish eating, I slowly make my way to the living room.

The state of the room is even worse than I had been imagining it would look. Baz and Penny seem to be going all out this morning. Pretty much every available space is covered in something wedding related.

There are magazines and notebook pages and even some sample wedding invitations scattered all around them.

They’ve even got a small marker board set up with all of the details of things that they’ve chosen for the wedding. They’ve got a few names under “caterer” and “florist”, but it looks like they haven’t yet chosen whether to have a band or a DJ.

In one notebook, it looks like they’re trying to get together a guest list, and from what I can tell as I glance at it, it seems like they plan on inviting everyone from our year at Watford.

They’ve tried to include me in some of the planning before, like the venue for the wedding, but it just feels like one big joke.

What’s the point in planning a wedding that will never happen?

Baz sees me walk in, and the smile that he gives me has my heart doing cartwheels in my chest. He clears a space on the floor next to him, so I move to join him.

I walk around the couch to sit beside him, and his arm slips easily around my waist. Without giving it much thought, I turn to place a kiss to his cheek.

This has pretty much become a normal thing for us. We’ve slipped right into being a couple, and the line between real and fake has blurred so much that I no longer know what’s happening between us.

We very much are not a couple, but it seems like in every way but name, we are. I’m no longer sure that he doesn’t feel the same way - it seems impossible that he doesn’t - but I’m so afraid of breaking this happy little bubble that we’re living in. If I say the wrong thing to him, I might ruin everything, and I’d rather enjoy these little moments for as long as I can.

It’s not just the moments like this, though. There are so many other ways that we act like more than just friends. I think the fact that he’s currently planning our “wedding” is probably the biggest thing.

It’s like he doesn’t want to let this go any more than I do.

“Good morning,” he says, tugging me closer.

“Morning,” I murmur, a smile playing on my lips. I can’t help but smile when he acts like this, holding me close to him.

I glance at the magazine that he’s looking at. It’s full of all kinds of different flowers that I couldn’t even begin to name. A few of them have been circled, and Baz has even added it neat handwriting to the pages, probably listing the pros and cons of each one.

It seems insane that Baz and Penny are actually doing all of this, going all out planning a fake wedding that no one else even knows about. It’s just a thing between the three of us and something that I don’t want to be a part of at all.

How can they sit here and plan a wedding that won’t happen? It seems like a colossal waste of time. Baz doesn’t want to marry me, so what’s the point?

I kind of get why Baz is doing all of this - he wants to win the competition and apparently plans to do that by planning an extravagant wedding - but what I don’t understand is why Penny is helping him. She knows that the whole thing is a sham.

After I proposed to Baz, she immediately pulled me aside and demanded that I tell her the truth. She saw right through the whole thing.

She thinks it’s stupid that we’re still going along with all of this (and that we started it in the first place) but she also understands why I can’t be the one that breaks it off. She still seems disappointed in me because I never managed to tell him how I really feel, though.

I just couldn’t do it. It would have ruined everything, and I wanted to at least still be friends with him. I wouldn’t have been able to face him after receiving that kind of rejection.

I still can’t explain why exactly I thought it would be a good idea to _propose_ to him. But he did say yes, and now we’re technically engaged. I only hope all of these plans that he’s making are fake as well. If he is in fact ordering all of these things just to prove a point, I might be in too far over my head.

If I’m being honest, marrying Baz is something that I would love to do. Someday. Not now, not right out of Watford. And especially not when our entire relationship has been fake.

The feelings for him are there, and they only grow stronger with each passing day. Of course, it doesn’t help that we do everything that couples do. We even have a date planned for this weekend.

I don’t know what the point of it is except that we both want to spend time together.

We’ve really got the emotional - and perhaps even physical - part of the relationship down, but the one thing that we seem to be missing is communication – actually talking about what is going on. We seem to be tiptoeing around the subject, not even mentioning the competition or when it will end anymore.

The only person who seems to be interested in talking about what’s going on between us is Penny.

It seems like it’s every day now that she tries to convince me to confess my feelings to Baz, but I just can’t bring myself to do that. I like what we have, and while I would of course like it to be real, I don’t want to risk losing him.

Penny insists that he might surprise me by returning those feelings, and I want to believe her - there are times when I do - but there’s always something that holds me back from telling him. And I’m pretty sure that it’s the very real love that I have for him.

I tried to deny it at first, but I did fall in love with Baz while we were back at Watford.

This competition brought us together and made me open my eyes to the truth. There has always been something different between me and Baz, something pulling us together. I always thought that it was our mutual hate for each other, but now I’m beginning to think that I was wrong all along.

Maybe there was something else bringing us together, and it just took me this long to realize it.

Baz and I are in a real relationship, whether we admit it to ourselves - or each other - or not.

I want to admit it. I want to turn to him now and tell him that I want this to be real. It would be so easy. All I have to do is say, _“Baz, I want to date you for real.”_

Baz removes his arm from around me, and I feel unusually cold and start to panic for a moment, thinking that maybe I accidentally said those words aloud. But then he reaches for another magazine, and I relax a little.

Nothing about this situation is relaxing, though. I can never really relax around Baz when I know that all of this could be taken away. With a few words, he could end this competition - and our relationship with it.

In fact, he was supposed to do just that while we were still at Watford.

The plan was that he was supposed to end it with me before the holidays, and when we returned, we would tell everyone that things just didn’t work out between us. We rushed into it too quickly and weren’t ready for such a big commitment.

But then Baz was inviting me to his house for Christmas, and things began to spiral out of control as we dealt with the Humdrum and everything else.

We began to hold onto each other for support, and it never felt like the right time to end our engagement. Now, we just don’t talk about it.

I’m starting to grow tired of this. While it’s nice acting like this with Baz, it’s tearing me up inside. Every time he says something nice to me or kisses me, I can feel my heart crack a little more with the knowledge that it isn’t real, and eventually my heart will shatter.

Unless I put an end to all of this.

It would be really easy to end it now since we won’t have to deal with the reactions of our peers. Penny already knows that the whole thing is a ruse, so why are we still doing this? Why don’t we just put an end to it?

I did a horrible job of ending our first fake relationship, so I really shouldn’t be the one who has to end this one, but Baz doesn’t seem like he’s ever going to do it. It looks like it’s up to me.

I’m afraid that ending this will mean ending everything, including our friendship, but ending it is the only way that we can find a way to make this real. So long as I’m questioning Baz’s every move, there’s no way that this can become something real. We first have to find a way to get past this.

I don’t have a clear idea of how this would work. I don’t even know if Baz will talk to me once this competition is finished. Will he still want to be friends with me? Or will he no longer have a reason to spend time with me?

Either way I think that it’s time that I find out.

I open my mouth to try to start a conversation about this with him when he starts talking about the wedding to me.

“I was thinking about asking Mordelia to be the flower girl. Penny found a nice dress with some blue detailing, and I think that it would go well with some of the other colors that we’ve chosen. But I wanted to make sure that it was okay with you.” He turns to look at me as if he’s trying to gauge my reaction, and I know that there is at least some sincerity in what he’s saying.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” I tell him, giving him a small smile. I know that having his family, any part of his family, at the wedding would mean a lot to him.

“Great. I was also trying to figure out how we wanted to get to the wedding venue. We could do a limo, but that seems overdone, so I was wondering if you had a preference.”

“Couldn’t you just drive us in your car?” I ask.

“Don’t you want to do something special? It’s our wedding day.”

 _But it’s not our wedding day_ , I want to say, but Penny speaks first.

“What about a party bus? That way the wedding party can tag along?”

“I think we might want a little more privacy than that,” Baz says, giving her a look that says everything he’s thinking without him actually having to say it.

“Shouldn’t you save that for your wedding night?” She asks, raising her eyebrows at him.

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Are they actually talking about me and Baz _having sex_? We’ve barely done anything more than kiss - for obvious reasons - and we definitely haven’t done that, so I don’t want to be having this discussion right now.

There have been a few times where I wanted to take it further, but we both always seem to pull back before that happens. Fake dating is confusing enough without becoming friends with benefits.

My face burns as I listen to them. I haven’t felt this mortified since Penny tried to give me that sex talk.

Thankfully, they quickly move on, leaving the decision of transportation for another day. Baz pulls a different magazine into his lap, setting aside the other two, and begins scanning the pages. This one is similar to the last in that it looks like he’s already looked through it before because there are notes written in the margins in his neat handwriting, and some of the images have been circled, like he intended to come back to them.

He appears to be really into this whole wedding planning thing, and it makes me wonder whether he’s just planning a wedding that he’ll have with some other guy. It definitely isn’t going to be our wedding, which makes me feel sick to my stomach and makes me really not want to take part in the planning.

I don’t want to end up going to a wedding that I helped do all the planning for if it’s between the guy that I fell in love with and someone who isn’t me.

I’ve tuned out at some point, and when I tune back in, Baz is pointing at various images of flowers and saying something to me. I haven’t heard a word, though.

“What?” I ask.

“Which one do you think would be best?”

I look over the flowers, but I can’t seem to focus on them.

I have to put an end to this. Not just the wedding planning, but the fake relationship. If I’m going to do this, I have to do it now, before I can come up with an excuse not to.

“I don’t know,” I tell him.

“Come on, Simon. You have to help pick something. These two are really nice.” He says pointing at two different arrangements.

“No,” I say firmly, shaking my head. “I don’t have to do any of this because it isn’t real, and—.” I take a breath, preparing myself for what I’m about to do. “And I think that we should put an end to this.”

He tears his eyes away from the magazine and whips his head up to look at me so fast that it startles me, and I want to take back what I said as soon as I see the look in his eyes.

I have to keep going, though.

“To what?” He asks quietly.

“This relationship.”

“Wait—,” he begins, but I cut him off before he can talk me out of it.

I have to do this now. I have to tell him how I really feel about him.

“No,” I stand up and move to put some distance between us so that I can think clearly.

I know that if he were to try to pull me back to him, I would let him. Ending this is one of the hardest things that I’ve ever had to do. I’m taking a big risk, one that could lose me everything.

“I’m done waiting. I’ve been waiting for you to end this for months, and I think—. I’ve finally had enough. I don’t want to be fake engaged anymore. I don’t want to plan a fake wedding. And most importantly, I don’t want to keep pretending like it doesn’t hurt me to see you pretending like you actually like me.”

“So, you just want to end all of this?”

“Yes. I can’t do it anymore.”

“Fine. I guess there’s only one thing left to figure out then.”

“What?” I ask, feeling a little hopeful, thinking that he’s talking about us.

“Who won?”

His words hit me like a slap to the face, and I stumble a little as I take a step back.

“Seriously? That’s what you care about?” I can feel myself getting angry, my magic bubbling up to the surface. It’s not quite as dangerous as it was before I nearly gave it all away – I would have if Baz hadn’t been there to stop me – but I know that I could still do some damage if I don’t calm down. “Whatever. I don’t care. You won.”

I wanted to try to talk to him now about how I really felt, but I don’t think that I can do that right now with the anger and hurt that I feel. I need some space to think about it and decide whether this is really the best thing for us.

I turn away from Baz and start to head out of the room.

“Simon, wait.” It’s Penny this time. I wish it was Baz.

I shake my head at her, not meeting her eyes.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I say. I can’t keep going on like this with Baz when the competition is the only thing that he cares about.

But at least I know the truth now.

Then, before the pain of what I’ve just done can really hit me, I grab some shoes and hurry out of the flat. I step out onto the pavement and start walking with no real destination in mind. I just need to get away.

As the tears start to burn the backs of my eyes, I wish that I had just listened to Penny all of those months ago.

***

_The applause continues even as Baz and I pull apart. The proposal was fake, but the way that I’m looking at him isn’t. I care deeply for him, and I want this with him. Once some time has passed, I’ll have to find a way to talk to him about what I did._

_We’ll plan an ending for our engagement, and I’ll try to start a conversation about how I feel. I want to try this relationship thing for real._

_I have some hope that he wants it, too, but I have to know for sure before I say anything._

_“Simon,” I hear behind me, and I turn to see Penny giving me one of her looks that means that I’ve done something especially idiotic._

_I know that she’s right, but nothing can kill this high that I’m riding at the moment, not even the fact that it wasn’t real._

_“I’ll talk to you later,” I tell Baz, squeezing his hand once, quickly, before allowing Penny to pull me away from the crowd of people and out of the dining hall and outside._

_When we’ve gotten a decent distant away from the Weeping Tower, she whirls on me, hands on her hips as she glares at me. I don’t understand why she looks so angry._

_“What was that?”_

_“Nothing,” I shrug, even though it clearly wasn’t nothing._

_“You just proposed.”_

_“Not really. Baz knows that it wasn’t real.”_

_“Are you sure?”_

_“Yes. We’ve decided to extend this competition between us.”_

_“But that wasn’t the plan, was it? You looked really upset before you went to go and talk to him.”_

_I shrug again and look down at the ground. “I was supposed to publicly break up with him, but I couldn’t do it. I need more time to figure out whether he likes me.”_

_“Then, you should just talk to him about it instead of playing these silly games. You’re only going to get hurt doing this.”_

_“I know, but I’ll get more hurt if he rejects me.”_

_She’s quiet for a moment, then, “You really like him, don’t you?_

_I press my lips together to keep myself from admitting that it’s more than that. I’m in love with him._

_She sighs. “Simon, I know you don’t want to get hurt, but wouldn’t it be easier to just talk to him?’_

_“No.” I shake my head. “I just need some time to watch him and see whether he likes me the same way.”_

_It’s not much different from when I watched him to find out what he was plotting. Only this time, I’m looking for something good rather than any sign that he might be planning to kill me._

_“Do you really think that’s the best idea?” She asks._

_“Yes,” I say firmly, looking back up at her._

_She looks like she wants to protest some more, and I wouldn’t blame her. This does seem like a ridiculous thing to do, but it’s my only option._

_I don’t want to lose him, and this is the only way that I can see to get around that._

_She finally relents and agrees to help me figure it out. With Penny by my side, there’s no way that anything can go wrong._

***

As I move away from our flat, I realize nothing went the way that I thought it would. So much went wrong. If I had just listened to Penny and told Baz how I felt about him, we wouldn’t be in this mess. I should have just taken her advice.


	2. Chapter 2

**Penny**

Simon storms out of the flat, leaving stunned silence in his wake. I turn to Baz, and he looks like he’s frozen.

“Baz,” I say quietly, an apology in my voice.

This definitely was not part of our plan. We thought that if we gave Simon a bigger push, it would make him say something. We never thought it would turn out like this.

I feel as though I’m partially to blame for what just happened. I should have tried harder to make Simon see - to make them both see - that they could be together, that they felt the same way.

I should have sat them down and made them talk to each other.

Now, I fear that it’s too late.

I don’t know what came over Simon just now. That anger seemed to come out of nowhere, but it’s possible that it has been building up beneath the surface for a long time, and I just didn’t see it.

I feel bad for the both of them right now. Simon doesn’t know how Baz feels about him, and Baz practically just got dumped.

He’s just sitting there, staring at the door, like he’s hoping Simon will walk back through it and take back what he said. He looks utterly broken, like his world just came crashing down around him.

And maybe it did.

Anyone who looked at the two of them could see how deeply they care for one another. Everyone could see it except for them.

Even Baz, who was sure that Simon felt something for him, couldn’t see it. He couldn’t see what was right there in front of him because he was worried about losing the person he cared about.

I would feel broken, too, if the person I love most in this world just walked out on me with barely any explanation.

“Baz,” I say again, a little louder this time, and he seems to snap out of it. “Are you okay?”

“I… I’m fine,” he mumbles, his eyes flickering around the room, which lets me know immediately that he’s nowhere near fine.

“He’ll come back,” I tell him. “He’ll come to his senses, and he will talk to you.”

He shakes his head. “You heard him. He doesn’t want anything to do with me.”

“He’s hurting. This fake engagement has been hurting both of you. It was only a matter of time before one of you finally broke. Just give him some time. He’ll come around.”

“I don’t think he will. He looked really upset.”

“Baz,” I say softly.

“No. I need to go. But first, I have to clean this up.” He starts gathering magazines, but his hands are shaking so badly that he nearly drops them.

“Don’t worry about it,” I tell him. “I’ll clear this up. You go.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“I’ll see you later.”

He nods, and as he stumbles toward the door, I worry about him. He’s not okay, and I doubt Simon is either.

I tried to get them both to see reason, pushing both of them to talk to the other, without intervening in a way that neither of them wanted me to. Maybe it would have been better, though, if I had just told them they both liked each other. Then, we might not be in this situation right now, where they’re both hurting and not talking to each other.

I carefully gather everything up from around the room, planning to store it somewhere safe in case those two ever manage to get it together and plan to actually get married someday. I hope it works out for them. I don’t want to see their story end this way.

**Baz**

Bunce asks me if I’m alright after Simon storms out of the flat, and I don’t know what to say. I know that all of this between me and Simon was fake, but why does it feel like he really just broke off our engagement?

Of course, I know the answer to that. I fell in too deep with him. I let it feel like a real relationship; I even acted like it was, kissing him and feeling all of my feelings out in the open.

For years, I was so careful to hide how I really feel about Simon, but within a few months of having him treat me like something more, I laid them all out in the open for anyone to see.

It was a mistake, and I should have known better. I can never take any of it back. I can never tuck my feelings back in and pretend like they aren’t there. Too many people saw how I felt about Simon, and even if Simon was too oblivious to see it, I’ll always know that I let him see the truth.

As I sit there, stunned, Bunce tries to assure me that everything will be fine, that Simon will come back to me, but I have a hard time believing her. That felt pretty final.

Maybe if I hadn’t said what I did, there would still be a chance, but he looked really angry before he left. I don’t know if he will ever forgive me.

“I need to go,” I tell her. “I-I just need to go.” I start to stand, then realize that I have to clean up this mess that we made first.

My hands are shaking as I try to gather some of the magazines and notebooks that we have spread across the floor and coffee table, and I can feel my eyes burning with tears that I don’t want to shed in front of Bunce.

“Hey,” she says softly, resting her hand on my arm. “I can clean this up. It’s fine.”

I nod slowly. “Thanks. I’ll see you later.”

She smiles sadly at me as I turn to leave. I probably won’t see her later. She was Simon’s friend first, so we probably won’t talk anymore after this, which is rather unfortunate because I actually enjoyed spending time with her.

I make my way to the door, pulling my phone out as I go.

I hurry down to the street, trying to see if I can catch up to Simon. I have to try to talk to him about this.

I have to try to apologize before it’s too late.

I look up and down the street, but I don’t see him anywhere. I turn right and begin walking briskly, hoping to find him, but he appears to have just disappeared.

I would think he used a spell if I didn’t know that his wand has been sitting untouched by him since before Christmas.

I start dialing his number, knowing that he probably won’t pick up, but I have to try. I can’t just let him go.

I keep walking as I listen to the ringing. I’m not surprised when I hear his voicemail, but I hang up and try again anyway. He doesn’t pick up this time, and I try once more, still not getting an answer. After a few more tries, I decide to give up, wanting to throw my phone at the ground in frustration.

I tear a hand through my hair, turning around in a circle, wondering where Simon could have gone and wondering how I could have let it end like this.

It was stupid to ask who won the competition. I didn’t really care, but I was feeling so hurt that I wasn’t thinking clearly.

But how could Simon just end it so abruptly? Shouldn’t we have talked about it first so that we could figure out what was next for us?

Leave it to Simon to come up with a way to destructively end it all.

It isn’t all his fault, though. I can’t put all the blame on him. I played just as big a part in all of this as he did. He was just the first person to finally break.

I shouldn’t have let it go on the way that I did. I should have just talked to him. I shouldn’t have let my fear of losing him stop me from telling him how I felt because now, I really have lost him.

I walk a little bit longer before deciding to just head back to Fiona’s flat. I’ve been staying there ever since I got out of Watford.

She isn’t home often, so I pretty much have the place to myself, a fact that I’m happy about as the tears begin to fall before I even make it through the door.

I definitely don’t want to have to try to explain everything that has happened to my aunt.

What would I even say to her?

_Oh, by the way, I was fake engaged to a guy that I’ve been in love with for years, and he just broke it off._

Somehow, I don’t see that going over well. She might think that I’ve absolutely lost it and need to go have my head checked.

Because honestly, who gets fake engaged? Who can’t just tell the person they love how they feel? Why is all of this so difficult for me?

I wipe away of few of the tears, trying to clear my vision so that I can make my way through the flat to the kitchen.

I make myself some tea and settle into the corner of the couch, but I don’t drink it. I feel sick to my stomach, and as the tears start to come faster, tea is the last thing on my mind.

Wondering whether Simon will forgive me for what I said or ever want to talk to me again brings up memories of all the fun times we had together.

I remember our first date when things were just beginning. It was supposed to be the only date that I took him on. Instead, it became the thing that began all of this.

Maybe if I had just kept to the whole no friends thing that I had been so insistent on that day, none of this would be happening. We wouldn’t have gotten to know each other better, and I wouldn’t have fallen even harder for him.

I don’t regret that. I have loved every moment of being his friend. It’s my own fault that I couldn’t handle it.

I close my eyes, and images of Simon and I browsing the shops together flash through my mind. The smiles we shared and the fun we had.

I remember the goat that I went back for the next day, and I wonder what Simon did with it. He never said anything about it, but the next morning, it was gone from his desk. I haven’t seen it since, so I don’t know if he kept it or gave it to Ebb like he wanted to.

Maybe he tossed it. He probably didn’t want to look at it and be reminded of our first date every time that he saw it.

The thought that he wouldn’t want to remember a day that meant so much to me makes my heart ache, and a sob escapes as I struggle to take in air.

I hate how much this hurts. I hate that I let this happen. Mostly, I hate that I never told Simon how I really felt about him.

I always kept distance between us, insisting on it, knowing that if we got too close, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from falling harder for him.

That was my mistake.

I pushed him away, and he finally left.

It’s my fault that he ended this, and I’m the one who has to fix it.

If only he would answer his phone and talk to me.

**Simon**

I practically run out of mine and Penny’s flat and just keep going, afraid that if I stop, the reality of what I just did will catch up to me, and it will take me down. If I let myself stop and think about what just happened, my heart will shatter. I can already feel myself about to fall apart as I take countless turns, moving farther and farther away from Baz.

It’s as if I think that the farther away I get physically, the easier it will be to remove myself emotionally from that situation.

I don’t want to think about what any of it means. If I keep walking, if I keep myself busy, I won’t have to think about how I may have just torn Baz and I apart for good.

That’s the one thing that will hurt the most, losing Baz’s presence in my life.

Even just as a friend, he’s pleasant to be around. If you had asked me before all of this started what it was like to be around Baz, I would have said something about him being a vampire and me being afraid that he’d kill me in my sleep.

I never really feared for my life around him, though. It’s like Ebb said once, he never succeeded in killing me, and as we grew older, those fights between us grew less deadly. It was just a way for us to channel our energy, our feelings.

It wasn’t the healthiest of ways to go about doing things, but it was the way that Baz and I worked together.

Now that I’ve gotten a chance to see what it’s like to be Baz’s friend, to be one of the people he cares for, I don’t want to lose that. It was stupid of me to think - to hope - that we could be more than friends.

I should have put an end to this fake relationship a long time ago so that we could have at least had a chance at being friends. Now, I’ve screwed up so completely that I’ll be lucky if he ever talks to me again.

Tears begin to fall, and even as I roughly wipe them away, they won’t stop, so I decide to ignore them and pick up my pace.

My phone rings in my pocket, but I don’t pull it out. I know that it’s probably Penny or Baz, and I don’t want to talk to either of them right now, so I let it go to voicemail and keep moving. I’ll call whoever it is back later, after I’ve had time to cool off and just have some time to myself.

I really don’t want to hear Penny say that she was right or Baz gloat about how he won.

Because what did he really win? Sure, he can say that he’s the better fiancé, but who is he going to tell that to? His future partner? Whoever he dates for real after this?

I’m pretty sure that they won’t care, so really, what was the point in this whole thing?

My phone rings a few more times, and finally, I pull it out of my pocket and turn it off, not even checking to see who has been calling me. It doesn’t matter right now.

I walk around for a long time, no destination in sight until I reach a park. It’s a place I’ve been to with Baz and Penny a couple of times when it was nice outside and we just needed some time to get outside, away from the stress in our lives and just as a way to relax now that the war is behind us.

I start walking the path around the park, letting the warm breeze wash over me and warm me up from the outside in, soothing the chill that I’ve felt since the moment I stepped out of the flat.

It’s a nice afternoon, and I wish that I could actually enjoy it, but the aching in my chest prevents any of that.

***

I finally return to the flat a few hours later. I know that Baz has probably left, wanting nothing to do with me now that this is over, and I’m hoping to avoid having to talk to Penny for a little bit longer.

When I step inside, the flat is dark and quiet. I pass by the living room on the way to my room, and all evidence of wedding plan has disappeared. It’s almost like it never happened. 

_Almost_. The pain I feel inside serves as proof that it did, in fact, happen.

When I get to my room, I kick off my shoes before climbing into bed and pulling the covers over my head, blocking out the rest of the world.

It’s then that I finally allow myself to feel all of the things that I’ve been trying to hold back. Not just from today but from the past several months.

Fake dating Baz, while fun, was slowly tearing me apart. Knowing that it meant nothing to him is what has made me feel like I was dying even while I’ve felt the most alive that I have ever felt.

And now that it’s over, now that our future is uncertain, I’m not sure what’s worse. Not being with him but knowing where we stand or being able to pretend like I had everything I wanted.

Finally, I let the tears fall and the sobs rack my body. The pain of what I did courses through me, and it feels like I just lost the love of my life.

I should have just told him how I felt while we were still at Watford. Now, he can just disappear into the world, and I could never see him again. Baz could disappear from my life, and I would be helpless to stop it.

It’s crazy to think that things could end so abruptly when not all that long ago, we were sharing deep, personal moments, as though we trusted each other more than anyone else in the world. As though we planned to spend the rest of our lives together.

Our engagement had so many moments when I forgot that it wasn’t real because the way that we acted when it was just the two of us was more than just keeping up the ruse in front of others or trying to win the competition.

It was like we stopped thinking for a moment and just gave in to how we felt, doing what we both wanted, and then never talking about it. This mostly happened when we kissed.

I found myself kissing Baz a lot during our fake engagement. We weren’t actually going on dates anymore, but we were spending a lot of time together. We actually became friends, and the arguments we always had turned into friendly banter.

My group of friends grew to include not only Baz, but also Dev and Niall, who surprised us all by showing up to the Leavers Ball together. Dancing isn’t really my thing, but that night, I had a lot of fun with Baz by my side.

That was mostly for show, but to me, it meant more. 

Everything that we did was what two people in a relationship would do. It’s like we were a couple without the label. Or any of the communication.

It isn’t that we didn’t talk. We just didn’t talk about our relationship or how it wasn’t real.

Baz became one of my closest friends as we learned as much as we could about each other. Like the reason why he doesn’t eat in the dining hall and how hard he works to get the grades he has - and the reason behind that, too. It’s rare that he talks about his mother, but learning how much education meant to her and how that transferred into Baz made me understand him a little better.

Now, I think that I may have lost all of that. I don’t know if after today, I’ll even have his friendship.

I don’t want to lose Baz, but I don’t know how to fix this. I could return his calls, but I’m so afraid that he’ll say that he’s done with all of this that I want to put off making that phone call just a little bit longer.

I’ll give us both a little more time to cool off, and then I’ll call him. I just need some time to think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for beta-reading @wo2ash!! <3
> 
> So, there isn't really a posting schedule with this one because I haven't finished the last two chapters, and I havne't really felt like writing recently. I'll do my best to get this posted as fast as I can, though.
> 
> Thank you all for reading! <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick reminder that the italicized parts are flashbacks!
> 
> Thank you @wo2ash for beta-reading and for everything else you've helped with <3

**Simon**

It feels like I haven’t moved from the couch in days, and for the most part, that’s true.

I don’t have anywhere to go or anything to do, so sitting on the couch seems like the best thing. Penny has tried to get me out of the flat a couple of times, but I just haven’t felt like moving.

Baz and I were supposed to go on a date the other day, and I kept thinking - wishing, _hoping_ \- that he would show up at my door and ask me if I was ready to go.

I spent most of that day staring at the door and jumping every time that my phone went off, thinking that was him, texting me to tell me that he was here.

Of course, that didn’t happen, and I’m pretty sure that he only called me once that day, late that night as I was getting ready for bed.

It took everything I had not to answer and beg him to forgive me, to tell him that I wanted to take back what I said the other day and that I wanted to continue the competition because anything with him was better than nothing. With tears threatening to spill once again, I turned off my phone and climbed into bed, hoping to just forget about the boy that I had fallen in love with.

There is a knock at the door now, and I both hope it is and hope it isn’t Baz. Days have passed since that day I walked out.

He keeps calling me, but I don’t know what to say to him, so I don’t answer.

I want to apologize, to ask if we can be friends, or something more, but I’m afraid that he’ll be angry about what I said that day or because I’ve been ignoring him.

Penny keeps telling me that I won’t know unless I talk to him, and I know that she’s right, but I feel like too much time has passed.

I didn’t mean to go so long without calling him back, but I kept putting it off, waiting until I knew what I wanted to say. The next thing I knew, nearly a week had passed, and Baz’s calls began to come less often more sporadically.

I still don’t know what to say. How do I tell him that I love him? That I regret this whole fake relationship but that I don’t regret getting to know him and finding out what it was like to love him.

I can’t just tell him that. The last time I tried, it ended with me storming out of the flat. I have to find a better way to go about it.

But right now, I have to answer the door because whoever it is knocks again, and it doesn’t seem like Penny plans on getting it.

A part of me really was hoping that Baz would be on the other side of the door, and I’m both surprised and disappointed to find his cousin standing there.

“What are you doing here?” I ask him.

“I came to talk to Penelope.”

“What for?”

“That’s not really any of your business.”

“She has a boyfriend, you know.” I don’t know why I say it. I’m just annoyed and don’t want to have to deal with him.

“As do I.”

It makes me feel a little lonely having all of this be said. Everyone has a boyfriend except for me.

“I’ll go get her,” I say, wanting to get out of this conversation and return to the couch. “Stay here.”

I leave him outside, shutting the door in his face, before trudging across the flat to Penny’s room.

I give a few quick knocks before waiting for her to call for me to enter. I open the door a few inches, just enough to stick my head inside to look at her.

“Dev is here.”

She’s sitting on her bed, looking at something on her laptop, and she frowns over the top of it at me.

“Dev? Baz’s cousin?”

“That’s the one.”

“What does he want?”

I shrug. “Said he wanted to talk to you.”

She makes a face before sliding off her bed and following me to the door.

“You left him outside?”

I shrug again.

She rolls her eyes before reaching for the doorknob and opening the door.

“Dev,” she says curtly.

“Hi, Penelope. I was wondering if we could talk.”

“About what?”

His eyes flicker towards me briefly before he says, “In private.”

She frowns but nods. “I’ve got this, Simon.”

I shrug once more before sauntering off back to my place on the couch where I was very much not watching the television, curled up in a fuzzy blanket as I tried unsuccessfully not to think about Baz.

Dev and Penny pass through the living room on the way to her room, and although I’m curious, I find that I don’t care enough to try to listen in on their conversation. It could be anything, and it probably doesn’t concern me.

It is a little strange that Dev just showed up here, though. He’s never even been to our flat before. We’ve been to his once with Baz, as a little get together of sorts of our friend group. I’m still not certain whether Baz’s friends know that our engagement is a sham or not.

I wonder if he told them or if he just let them think that he’s in love with me.

Ha. As if.

I can feel the pain of the breakup wash through me again, and I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to keep it at bay.

My phone goes off beside me - Baz again - and I ignore it. I need more time.

I wonder if Baz is feeling the amount of pain that I am.

Probably not. All he cared about the last time we talked was deciding who won this competition. How do you even decide something like that?

It’s hard to believe that everything is really over, just like that. 

Baz and I were a couple, real or not, for almost a year, and in just a few minutes, I managed to tear that down.

After everything that we’ve been through together, you would think that it would take a lot more than one little outburst to completely tear us apart.

Without him here, it feels like there is a large part of me missing.

It’s like I’ve lost a large part of what makes me me. Baz has always been a big part of my life, whether I wanted him to or not, and now that he’s gone, it feels like I’ve lost a part of myself.

It’s comparable to how I felt after the final fight with the Humdrum.

One of the big differences is that Baz was there to comfort me after that. Now, it feels like I’m all alone.

***

_A couple of days after the fight with the Humdrum, Baz and I go to visit Ebb in the infirmary together._

_I don’t like being back at Watford after everything that happened, but when I heard that Ebb was finally awake, I had to come. I had to see for myself that she was alright._

_I was surprised when Baz agreed to come with me._

_There was no hesitation, only a softness in his eyes as I told him that I was afraid to go back there. I was afraid that returning here would be like facing the Humdrum all over again._

_When we reach the gates, Baz stops and waits for me to be ready. Without me uttering a word, he knows that I need a moment. It makes my heart do a flip to know that, to see that he knows me so well._

_For a moment, I’m almost certain that I’m going to turn around and leave, but when I turn to Baz and see the warm smile that he gives me, I know that with him, I will be strong enough._

_He offers his hand to me, and I grip it tightly in mine. If it hurts him, he doesn’t say anything. I keep holding it as we step inside the gates, though I begin to wonder about who we might run into inside._

_After everything that we’ve been through together recently, I don’t care who sees us or what anyone thinks._

_All that matters is that Baz is there beside me. He’s keeping me grounded, and that means everything to me when I feel like I could fall apart just from a small gust of wind._

_When we walk into the room, I expect to see Ebb lying in bed, close to death, but I’m happily surprised to find her sitting up in bed and looking, dare I say,_ healthy _._

_She smiles when she sees me, her eyes getting watery. She looks just like normal, and I almost think I imagined her bleeding out in front of me._

_“You’re alive,” I whisper when I step up beside her bed._

_“As are you.”_

_I nod, unsure how to say what I want to tell her. I’m glad that she’s alive. I couldn’t have imagined ever returning to Watford again if she wasn’t there in her little hut, tending to her goats._

_Watford wouldn’t be Watford without Ebb._

_“What happened with the Mage?” She asks, and it surprises me that no one has told her._

_I open my mouth to speak, but I can feel my body begin to shake as I think about what happened._

_Baz steps in to answer for me, telling her everything that happened._

_He does his best to tell her what happened before he got there, going off what he saw and what little I managed to tell him later that day, after everything was said and done._

_He held me for hours then as I cried into his shirt, probably ruining it. He didn’t seem to mind, though._

_I know that he must have been affected just like I was, but he pushed his own pain aside to help me with mine._

_If I could have asked him to marry me for real that night, I would have. But our relationship is fake, and I didn’t want to jeopardize our friendship._

_As Baz talks to Ebb, telling her how Professor Bunce showed up just in time to stop the Mage and how I gave my magic to the Humdrum to stop him, I glance out the window at the school grounds. Everything looks almost exactly the same as it was when I left for Baz’s house._

_Ebb’s hut sits out by the woods. The pitch stands empty and covered in snow. There are quite a few cars, probably belonging to members of the coven, having come to deal with the aftermath of what the Mage and the Humdrum did to this school._

_It’s all so familiar, but it no longer feels like a place that I want to return to. Without my magic, I have no reason to come back._

_Baz has already said that he plans to return to finish the year, but not knowing whether my magic will fully return, on top of everything we saw, is enough to keep me away. My magic comes in little, accidental bursts sometimes, but there is no way to know whether it will return for good or disappear. Nothing like this has ever happened before, so there’s nothing to go off of._

_I turn away from the window and tune back into the conversation in time to hear Ebb talking to Baz about his mother._

_“I will forever be grateful to her and the opportunity that she gave me here. Without her, who knows where I may have ended up. Perhaps I would have gone after my brother and joined him.”_

_I squeeze Baz’s hand tightly in mine, comforting him as he goes stiff at the mention of his mom._

_He glances at me, quirking the corner of his mouth just the slightest in a facsimile of a smile. I attempt to smile back and forget for a moment that Ebb is watching the two of us._

_Until she comments on it, that is._

_“I am so glad that you two finally found a way to work through all of your animosity. I’m happy for you both.”_

_My face flames under her gaze, and I lean into Baz, resisting the urge to bury my face in his neck._

_“We-We’re just…” I drift off. I’ve never been very good at lying to Ebb. She’s always seemed to be able to see right through me, especially when it came to Baz._

_“I understand,” She says, gently cutting me off. “I’m just glad that you were able to finally admit your feelings for each other. I never managed to do that with the person I loved when I was younger.”_

_“You still have time," I say. "It’s never too late to tell the person you love how you feel.”_

_I keep my eyes on her, careful not to look at Baz as I talk, afraid that he’ll be able to see the truth in what I’m saying._

_I do love him, and it’s not too late to tell him, but this seems like the wrong time to tell him. We just found out that the Mage was behind his mother’s death._

_It’s definitely not the time for love confessions._

_We stay with Ebb for a while longer, not really saying much, until it’s late and we need to head home._

_When we leave Ebb, I want to ask Baz to stay with me for the rest of the night, but I’ve been staying with the Bunces, whose home barely has enough space for me. And he and his family have been staying with some friends until they make plans to move to another home, now that theirs is a dead spot, which I can’t help but feel responsible for._

_On the drive back, I cling to his hand the entire time, keeping quiet, rather than saying any of the things that I wish I could tell him. When we pull up in front of Penny’s home, I make no move to get out of the car._

_“Simon,” Baz breathes quietly after a long, quiet moment._

_I shake my head. There’s nothing that can be said at this point that would make things better._

_My mentor turned out to be a murderer, and he tried to take my magic, nearly succeeding. Who knows what other horrible things he’s done and what part I may have unwittingly played in them, thinking that I was simply helping him on his “missions?”_

_He looks like he wants to say something that will change what’s going on, but I can’t do that right now. I just need some time._

_I lift my free hand to cup his cheek before leaning forward and kissing him softly, briefly._

_“I’ll see you later,” I tell him, leaning my forehead against his for just a moment._

_He nods, and I reluctantly step out of the car. I have to fight the urge to turn back to look at him. It’s better this way. We can talk about this relationship later._

_I don’t want it to end, not now when I need him the most, and I hope that he feels the same way. But I can’t risk him not wanting that, so for now, I settle for being the recipient of his fake feelings._

**Dev**

“What do you want to talk about?” Penelope asks once we’re in her room, shut away from Simon.

It feels weird to be here, but something needed to be done.

“Baz. And Simon.”

“About their coming wedding or…?”

I shake my head. “I know the truth. I know that it was fake. Baz told me the other day.”

“Then, you know that it’s over between them.”

“I also know that it’s killing Baz.”

She sighs, sinking down onto her bed. “I think it’s killing Simon, too, but I can’t get him to talk about it.”

“So, he really likes Baz?”

She nods. “I’ve been trying to get them to just talk to each other and confess their feelings, but those two are really stubborn.”

“Agreed.” When Baz makes his mind up about something, it’s almost impossible to change it. “But I was thinking that if we work together, maybe we can make them talk.”

“And how do you propose we do that?”

“I have a few ideas, but I’m going to need your help getting Simon to agree.”

“Why do you care about whether they get together? I thought you were mad at Baz when you first found out.”

I feel my face warm in embarrassment. It’s true that I wasn’t the most supportive about the two of them, but that was more because I was upset that Baz had kept it a secret from me.

Now that I know that it was all fake, I can see why he wouldn’t want to tell anyone. I’ve already apologized to him for that, but I still feel awful about how childish I acted, not talking to him for a couple of weeks.

“That wasn’t because I didn’t want them to be together. It was stupid. But I’ve never seen Baz like this. It’s like the life has been drained out of him.” Which is a little ironic, seeing as how he’s a vampire.

This is different, though. He won’t talk to me or Niall about it, but when I dropped by his flat, it looked like he hadn’t left in days. I had to practically drag him into the woods to get him to feed.

It was only the fact that he didn’t want me to see him feed that kept me from having to get him farther than outside. From there, I assume that he made it on his own.

I waited outside of his flat for an hour, but he didn’t return. When I texted him, he said that he was fine and told me to go home.

I wanted to stay and help, but I didn’t want to push him too hard.

If he won’t help himself, though, I’m going to do everything in my power to cheer him up.

And honestly, I don’t mind Simon all that much.

We don’t know each other that well, and we never really talked in school, but after he and Baz started their, apparently fake, relationship, I started to get to know him a bit better. It wasn’t much, but he seemed like a pretty decent guy.

I understand what Baz sees in him, and I think that the two of them would work really well together.

I’ve even seen that firsthand. They may have pretended like their relationship was fake, but when they were together, it all seemed real. You can’t fake that kind of love.

“So, will you help me?” I ask Penelope.

I’ll put the plan in motion whether she does or not, but it will be easier if she helps.

She seems to consider it for a moment, and I wait patiently for her to respond.

“If you really think it will work,” she says slowly.

“I hope it will.”

“Okay. I’ll help.”

We spend the next hour working out our plan to get Simon and Baz together. It should work, but it really depends on whether they’ll cooperate and if they actually talk to each other once we get them into the same room.

Penelope thinks that Simon will be the easiest person to convince, so we’ll start with him, telling him enough to get him to reach out to Baz.

We plan to give them another day or two to see if they’ll work it out on their own, but right now, that doesn’t seem very likely.

**Baz**

I’ve spent most of today in bed, but I managed to get up and get dressed, which is better than nothing I suppose.

It’s been over a week since I last talked to Simon, and I’m beginning to lose hope.

He won’t pick up or return my calls or texts, and I’ve stopped sending them. I just need to accept that he no longer wants anything to do with me.

I turn over to look at the ring box on my nightstand. I pick it up and rub my thumb over the top before opening it and pulling out the ring.

It’s made of titanium, and it has the Pitch coat of arms on it, flanked on both sides with a tsavorite stone. The rest of the band is inlaid with red opal, looking almost like flames, which is unsurprising since Pitch is the House of Fire.

The ring is a family heirloom, passed down through my mother’s side. My aunt gave it to me after the Leavers Ceremony, telling me to give it to someone special.

I wish that person was Simon, but I have to start living in reality. And the reality is that Simon doesn’t want to be with me.

I turn the ring around and around in between my fingers.

Penny suggested that I give it to Simon as the next step in our plan, thinking that something so final and serious would finally get him to say something, but I couldn’t do that.

When I give this ring to someone, I want it to be because I’m certain that they want to be with me. I want it to be real and not part of some scheme to get someone to _maybe_ admit their feelings for me.

As I look at the ring and consider the unlikely possibility of a future with Simon, I begin to think that I’m ready to give up now. I’ve wasted too much time with someone who doesn’t want to be with me, and I’ve got to start looking for someone who does.

It’s time to move on.

I place the ring back into its box and tuck it safely away. I won’t be needing it any time soon.

Moving on from Simon isn’t going to be easy when I’ve been struggling to just get through the day recently.

I try to keep myself busy during the days, doing everything that I can not to think about Simon, but the nights are the worst.

When everything slows, and I struggle to turn my mind off, the truth about everything comes rushing to the front of my mind.

It’s an awful feeling, and there are times when it feels like it will kill me.

It has been a long time since I felt this much pain. The last time that I felt this hopeless and like I’d lost the most important person in my life was after my mother died.

Only, this time the person that I lost hasn’t died. Simon just doesn’t want to be with me. And really, can I blame him? It wasn’t real. I was never open with him about my feelings. Maybe if I had told him how I felt…

But it doesn’t matter now.

Now, all I have are the memories of some of the greatest moments in my life. The moments where I almost forgot that nothing was real. The moments that I’ll never be able to let go of because they were the moments that I felt closest to Simon.

***

_When Simon showed up at my house a couple of days before Christmas, I was surprised to see him. He was covered in half the countryside, looking out of place in my Victorian mansion, but when he looked up and saw me standing there, his eyes lit up, and I couldn’t help the way that my heart skipped a beat, giving me some hope._

_I invited him to my house for the holidays, knowing that he didn’t have anywhere to go and not wanting to spend that much time apart, but he politely declined, saying that we didn’t need to keep up the pretense of an engagement while we were on a break. Then, he compared it to taking a break from our “fake relationship,” and I had to pretend like it didn’t hurt to realize that it was just that simple for him._

_But now he’s here, eyes bright and cheeks rosy from the cold, and I can’t help but hope._

_Maybe I was wrong when I thought it was easy for him to take a break. Maybe he couldn’t stay away from me for long either._

_Of course, he also brought news about a lead on my mother’s killer, so that could have been all that was motivating him, but it didn’t seem that way._

_When I invited him over, I should have remembered that I’d have to introduce him to my family._

_Technically, he’d already met them before, but this felt different. It felt like I was reintroducing him to them, this time as my fiancé._

_Not that my family knew any of what was going on. (Thankfully, that bit of information hadn’t seemed to make it past the kids in school. If anyone’s parents found out about it, I’m sure my father would be the first person who they told.)_

_Still, as we moved to talk to Daphne, my heart was pounding so hard in my chest that it was a wonder no one else could hear it. I did everything that I could to get away from her as quickly as possible, but I still felt a little panicky._

_If my family found out that I was “engaged” to Simon, I’m sure that they would have found a way to use that to their advantage._

_I was also afraid of my what my father would think. He can barely acknowledge the fact that I’m gay. What would he say if he thought that I was engaged to a guy? And the Mage’s Heir, no less?_

_As I slowly spiraled down into a panic while we ascended the stairs to my room, Simon’s hand reached out for mine, and he intertwined our fingers._

_It was such a shock that he managed to pull me out of my thoughts and back into the present moment. And for a brief moment, I thought that my heart had stopped beating._

_It was the first time that Simon and I had ever held hands. (And after that, it felt like we never stopped. Our hands were instantly drawn together anytime that we came within a couple of feet of each other.)_

_As he took my hand for the first time, I felt like he was lending me some of his strength, giving me the ability to get through that time at my house._

_Even without me saying something was wrong, it was like he knew._

_He didn’t have to say anything either, just having our hands interlocked was enough to calm me down for the moment._

_There were a lot of moments like that, especially when we were at my house, where we didn’t have to say much to each other. Or maybe we were afraid to. But it seemed to work for us._

_When Simon came into my room late the first night at my house, telling me that he wanted to leave, I worried that it was because of something that I had done, and I nearly laughed with relief when he told me that his room was haunted._

_Without hesitating I invited him to stay in my room, not wanting him to leave. I wanted to tell him that he could sleep in my bed, but I felt like that would have been crossing a line._

_That didn’t stop things from changing later that night when neither of us could seem to sleep._

_“Baz,” he whispered, and for a moment, I thought that I had imagined it. “Are you awake?”_

_“Yes,” I whispered back. “I couldn’t sleep.”_

_“Me neither.”_

_Blaming it on the sleep deprivation, I asked him, “Would you like to come lie next to me?”_

_The room was quiet for a long time, and my heart thundered in the quiet of the room. I was sure that I had screwed things up, crossed the wrong line, when he finally spoke._

_“Are you sure?” He asked._

_“There is plenty of room for the two of us. No reason you have to stay on the couch.” I was trying to make it sound like it was the practical thing to do and not let through how much I really wanted him there._

_He didn’t respond, but I could hear rustling as he picked up his pillow and moved towards my bed._

_“Thanks,” he said as he settled under the covers._

_“Anytime,” I told him, knowing that I meant it._

_We didn’t say anything after that, but our hands found each other in the dark, twining around each other and holding on for dear life._

_The next morning, when we woke up with our limbs entangled, we still didn’t say anything._

_After I murmured a spell to clear away my morning breath, I moved closer to him. Apparently, he’d done the same because as we began to kiss each other lightly, there was a strong taste of mint, neither knowing who moved first but neither of us tried to stop it either._

_When the soft peck turned into a more passionate kiss, we were too busy to talk, and neither of us said anything as it continued on for long moments._

_When Mordelia knocked on my door (thank Merlin she finally remembered), we sprang apart, and I slid out of bed quickly to go answer the door before she decided to go ahead and let herself in and found us together like that._

***

We still haven’t talked about that morning in bed or any other times that we’ve kissed when it didn’t have anything to do with this asinine competition. There were a lot of moments like that, perhaps not as intimate as that one, but that wasn’t the only time that I found myself kissing Simon, thinking that it felt real, and wondering what we were doing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hate to do this, but after I post this chapter, I'm going to be taking a break from this fic. I'm not abandoning it, but I just can't find a way to finish it right now. It has begun to mess with my mental health, and I need to do what's best for me and take a step back for a while. I will come back and finish it as soon as I can, but I don't know when that will be.
> 
> Thank you all for reading and for all of the amazing comments you have been leaving. <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baz has decided to move on, and Simon is trying to find a way to fix things between them, hoping that it's not too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have finally returned, and I would like to start this off with an apology. It's hard to believe that it has been 8 months since I last update this fic; it honestly doesn't feel like that much time has passed. I'm sorry that I made you all wait that long.
> 
> I would also like to thank all of you for being patient with me and so understanding of my need to take a break. You all are the reason I was finally able to return to this fic.
> 
> There are two people in particular who I would like to thank and the first person is @wo2ash. She has supported me through all of this and continued to remind me that it would it be okay every time that I started feeling guilty for basically abandoning this fic. Then, she came back to beta the rest of the fic, which I am so grateful for. I appreciate all of the help that she has given me more than I can say right now, but without her, I'm not sure I would have ever finished this fic.
> 
> The second person I would like to thank is @rareandbeautifulthing on Tumblr, who helped me figure out what I wanted to do with these last few chapters and gave me the idea for quite a few things that will happen. They were a large part of what pushed me to finish this fic, and I'm very grateful for their help.
> 
> Alright, enough of my rambling, I hope you all like this chapter!

**Baz**

Deciding to be done with Simon is easier said than done. You can’t just stop feeling feelings that you’ve felt for someone for years. You can’t simply turn them off.

If it was that easy, I would have done it a long time ago. Pining after my nemesis roommate for years is definitely not something that I would _choose_ to do.

I’m tired of the tears, though. I’m tired of this pain that I feel every time I think about him.

It’s the pain of the breakup without the memories of being happy and in love with each other. 

I miss him.

I miss his touch and his warm smiles. I miss the way that it felt like he was becoming one of my best friends.

It would have been easier if we had never started this stupid competition because I wouldn’t know what it was like to have his arms wrapped around me as he told me how much he cared for me. I wouldn’t know what it was like to be someone he felt strongly for and cared about protecting.

If I could go back in time and stop all of this from happening, I would.

At least, that’s what I keep telling myself, but I know that it isn’t true.

I would never give up those memories. Even if they weren’t as real as I wanted them to be, I could never willingly forget what it was like to be with Simon and be happy.

With a sigh, I fall back in bed, moments with Simon flashing through my head, some of them standing out more than others. All the moments - so many moments - where I almost broke and told him that I was in love with him.

In the same way that they bring tears to my eyes, they also bring a smile to my face.

These moments meant something to me, and no matter how much I’m hurting right now, I don’t regret any of it.

There were nights back at Watford when we were both so tired but couldn’t sleep, and we would sit on the floor between our beds, the same place that we had our last date, and we’d just talk. We would be open and honest about things like the war and the Humdrum and how we were admittedly both so afraid of how it would all go down, wondering whether we’d even make it out alive.

As we nearly fell asleep in the early hours of the morning, I’d find myself about to just blurt it out, tell Simon that I was in love with him and would do everything that I could to keep him safe.

Then, I almost told him how I felt when he showed up at the Leavers Ceremony. He didn’t need to go — I know he didn’t want to return to Watford after everything that happened — but he went there for me, to support my decision to finish out the year, to make sure that I was alright.

It warmed my heart to see him there, and even though there was a brief moment when I thought that maybe he was trying to keep up the pretense of our engagement for the other people there, I knew that that wasn’t it.

He was there for me, which is something that I never thought I would get to experience, having Simon by my side and caring about me without any care for what anyone else might be thinking.

There were so many other times when I found the words fighting to escape as well.

Even that morning that he left, looking so upset, I wanted to tell him that I was in love with him.

Not because I thought it would make him stay but because I simply needed him to know how I felt about him, even if he would never feel the same. Even if there was a chance that I would never see him again.

Right now, it feels like that last thing might be true, and I’m starting to regret never telling him how I felt.

And now it’s too late.

I have decided that I am going to give up on waiting for him to come around, and I am going to stick with that. Even if it’s one of the hardest things I have ever done.

I keep reaching for my phone to call him, and I just barely manage to stop myself from hitting the call button each time I do. I want to hear his voice, even if it’s only through his voicemail.

I have considered deleting his number once or twice, but even if it wasn’t burned into my memory, I would not be able to do it. I still want to be able to reach him if I want to, whether it be for an emergency or simply because I’m weak.

I can’t let go of Simon completely. All I can do is try to distance myself from him as much as possible in the hopes that I’ll be able to find love with another person, even if there is no chance of it comparing to what I had with Simon.

The best I can do is try.

**Simon**

Baz hasn’t tried to contact me in a couple of days, and I didn’t realize how much comfort I received from simply hearing his ringtone until it stopped.

When he was calling me, I could still believe that he cared. Even if it was a negative feeling pushing him to try to talk to me, it was better than nothing.

Now, without his numerous calls, my days are quiet and feel empty.

My phone doesn’t ring anymore, and I have no reason to move from this couch. Losing those calls means losing what little hope I had left.

I just wanted some time to figure everything out, but it seems like maybe I took too much time. Baz appears to have decided to let me go, and I’m not sure if there is anything that I can do to change his mind.

While I sit in my usual spot on the couch, I start scrolling through all of the texts that I have received from him over the past few days and completely ignored until now.

There are at least 20 unread texts from him, and as I read them, my throat starts to feel tight, and my stomach feels uneasy. Mostly, Baz was asking me to return his phone calls and asking me to let him explain, but it’s the last two text messages that really get my attention.

_I’m sorry._

_It wasn’t just a competition for me._

They’re from two days ago, and it is definitely too late to reply.

But Baz doesn’t consider it all just a competition, which means he probably wasn’t faking it all.

I feel my chest fill with hope before deflating just as quickly. Because not only does it mean I was wrong about what Baz was feeling, it also means that I’m an idiot.

I was too afraid to face the reality of everything, so I’ve been ignoring him, and that may have just ruined any chance of reconciling with Baz.

Baz hasn’t tried to reach me since then, and he thinks that I have just been ignoring him this whole time. Which is true, but if I had known the truth before, I wouldn’t have been.

If only I hadn’t been acting so stubborn, I might have been able to salvage this whole thing. Baz and I could have been working through this issue instead of distancing ourselves from each other.

I could march over to his flat and ask him to forgive me and try to explain everything to him, but I doubt he would even answer the door. And if he did, he would probably slam the door in my face as soon as he saw me. (That, or push me down the stairs.)

I need to talk this through with someone, someone who can help me figure out a plan for what to do, but Penny is off somewhere, and I have no one else that I can confide in about all of this.

I can’t just continue sitting in my flat, thinking about Baz and how much I’ve screwed all of this up, though. Lounging on the couch isn’t going to change anything, so I finally decide to get up and go out.

I don’t really have anywhere to go, but there is someone that I can visit.

I haven’t seen Ebb since that day Baz and I visited her in the hospital. She is probably at Watford, and even if she isn’t, it might be nice to go back there, just to see the school.

I was surprised to hear that she returned to Watford after everything that happened, but she said that this school has always been her home. She stayed after Headmistress Pitch was killed and she’ll continue to be there until she dies or someone forcibly removes her.

I wish that I had a place like that, a place to call home no matter what, a place where I feel like I’m safe and always welcome.

I’ve considered it, becoming a teacher and returning to the school or even helping Ebb as an assistant goatherd, but I just can’t see myself going back to that place every day.

I have to find a new place for me, a place where I can be in love with someone and not have to worry about being attacked every day.

Even though I’ve screwed everything up, I wish the place that I could call home was with Baz.

That’s never going to happen, though.

It takes a couple of hours, a train, and a cab to get there, but the trip isn’t any longer than it was when I returned to Watford each term after leaving the care homes. It almost feels like I’m actually returning there for another year even though the new term won’t start for another month or so.

When I reach out to touch the gate, I worry that my magic won’t be enough. I worry that I’ll be locked out forever one day, but as soon as my hand touches the gate, it creaks open, revealing the open field of the green lawn.

I don’t stand there staring for long, too afraid that the memories of everything that happened here will come rushing back, so I instead turn and head towards Ebb’s cottage.

I pass several of her goats that are roaming the fields as I make way over to where she is sitting, her staff lying in the grass next to her.

It’s weird being back here at Watford, but sitting out in the fields with Ebb and her goats makes it feel like I’m not really at the school. It feels like I’m just someplace out in the country. As long as I stay on this side of the moat, I should be fine.

The Leavers Ball was likely the last time that I would ever step foot over the drawbridge. Baz will likely come back - it’s the place where his mother is entombed after all - but I just can’t see myself coming back here again.

I used to think that this would always be the one place where I belonged, but being here doesn’t quite feel like home the way that I thought it would. But in a way, it feels nice to be back, to remember what this place once meant to me.

We exchange pleasantries for a bit, and I’m finding it quite peaceful out here and extremely thankful that I decided to finally get out of my flat. But then Ebb asks about Baz, and the whole, painful truth just comes pouring out of me.

I tell her all about how it began with a ridiculous competition and ended with me getting frustrated and being unable to confess my feelings for Baz.

It feels good to finally get it all out in the open, but I feel ridiculous hearing it all laid out like that.

How could I have agreed to go along with all of that? Did I really think that any of it would work? It was such an idiotic idea, all of it, and if I wasn’t so bad at communicating with him, maybe all of this could have been solved a long time ago.

Why did I let it go this far? Is there some way that I can make it right?

After I finish talking, Ebb is quiet for a while, and I can only imagine what must be going through her mind. She’s probably thinking that Baz and I are a pair of fools, and she’d be right.

Only fools would agree to doing any of that.

“So, you two weren’t actually dating when you came and visited me?” She asks finally.

Thinking back to that, I remember how from the outside it would have been impossible to see that we weren’t a real couple. The way that I tightly gripped his hand in mine and leaned into him for support. I don’t think that I would have been able to make it through that day without him, and I will be forever grateful that he was there for me.

I nod in answer to her question, and she looks at me thoughtfully.

“I find that hard to believe,” Ebb says. “You two looked...well, maybe happy isn’t the right word since that was such a terrible time for all of us, but you two looked like you were exactly where you belonged. Together.”

“I just don’t know whether he feels the same,” I admit, picking at a blade of grass.

“I have no doubt about that. I saw the way he looked at you. In fact, seeing the way that you two were with each other gave me the push I needed to talk to that girl I told you about.”

“Really?” I ask, eyes going wide as I look up at her. Maybe something good came out of mine and Baz’s foolishness after all. “What happened? What’d she say?”

“Well, it’s still a little complicated.” It’s her turn to look bashful. There’s a small smile paired with a dreamy expression on her expression as she continues, “but I think that things are going to work out between us. I’m hoping they will anyway.”

She’s looking out towards the Wavering Woods now, and even though I’m curious for more information, I just smile and nod.

“I hope they will, too,” I tell her. Someone around here deserves to be happy.

“I think it will work out with you and that Pitch boy, too. It’s just going to take some time. And you’ll have to actually talk to him for it to happen.”

“I tried calling him this morning, but I’m afraid that it’s too late. That I’ve already lost him.”

I got weak on the train ride and thought that maybe, just maybe, he would answer, and everything would be alright. Of course, it went straight to voicemail.

“You need to do some kind of grand gesture,” Ebb says. “You have to show him how much you care about him.”

“What if I just end up making a fool of myself and he doesn’t feel the same about me?”

“I find that unlikely, but I think you have to take a chance.”

“Alright,” I say. “I’ll do it. I’ll find a big way to tell him how I feel.”

We sit quietly for a while after that. It’s hot out here, but it’s nice to just be outside after being cooped up in my flat for days.

I look up and see the nymph who looks like a Victorian lady standing at the edge of the woods. She’s watching Ebb, and when Ebb sees her, a smile breaks out across both of their faces.

“Who’s that?” I ask, although I have my suspicions.

“She’s an old friend who I recently reconnected with.”

“Just a friend?” I ask, thinking about the girl Ebb mentioned and wondering if that could be her.

“Yes. For now. I don’t know. We’ll see how it goes. Anyway, I’m meant to be meeting with Headmistress Bunce soon. Would you like to come with me? I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”

I look at the gates forlornly and shake my head. “I think I’m going to head home.”

“Alright. It was really nice to see you again, Simon. Be sure to come back to visit.”

“I will,” I promise, standing up and brushing the grass off my jeans.

“Hopefully, next time Baz will be with you.”

“We’ll see. Maybe you’ll introduce me to that friend of yours next time.”

“We’ll see,” she says, and we both smile before hugging goodbye.

As I leave, I know that I’ll be back. Maybe I won’t go through the gates, but I don’t think that I’ll be able to avoid Watford forever. It’s too much a part of my life – just like Baz – and I can’t let either of them go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! <3
> 
> There are only 3 chapters left, and I am happy to report that I have the next two completed. The last one will likely be some kind of epilogue, but I have not started writing it, so it may take me a bit more time to get to it. But I promise it's coming!
> 
> Come find me on [Tumblr](https://angelsfalling16.tumblr.com/) and tell me what you think!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simon puts his plan into motion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you @wo2ash for beta reading! <3

**Simon**

When I return to the flat after talking to Ebb, Penny still isn’t there, but I go into her room anyway.

I know the container has to be in here. The hall closet is stuffed to bursting, so there’s no way that it’s in there, and there’s nowhere else for it to be except somewhere in her room.

Unless she threw it all away. Which is doubtful. They put hours of work into planning this fake wedding, and Penny has kept every notebook she’s ever written notes in, so there is no way that she threw this out.

I flip on the light and look around. There aren’t many places that it could be hiding. The most obvious place would be under the bed, so that’s where I look first, and sure enough, it’s there, filled with all the magazines and papers that a few days ago, I was hoping to never see again.

Right now, though, I’m relieved to see them because I have a plan.

I pull the container closer to me, pop the lid off, and start pulling things out.

All the stuff in here is a symbol of everything that I will never have unless I find a way to show Baz that I’m serious about him.

As I flip through the notebooks, looking over guest lists and seating plans, a rush of emotions flows over me, hitting me from all sides.

This box is full of so many possibilities, and I couldn’t see it until now.

Before, I only saw all of these things as an impossible future, something that would hurt me, but now, I look at it and wonder. I wonder whether Baz and I could actually do this. Could we celebrate our love for each other and spend the rest of our lives together?

It only takes me a couple of seconds to decide that yes, that is definitely something that I would want. I would want to commit myself to him, to a lifetime of showing him how much he means to me.

I would do anything to be with him for the rest of our lives.

Towards the bottom of the box, I find what I’m looking for. Wedding invitations and save-the-date cards.

They’re blank and only meant as samples, but as I look at them, I think that they will work perfectly for my plan. I grab a notebook, the one still open to the guest list, which Penny has already added addresses to, and a few of the cards and start filling out a few of them with a date for over a year from now and one of the two venues that Baz was pretty keen on.

He was trying to get me to choose one last week, and even though I knew which one I preferred, I never told him.

Now is my chance to try to change things.

I only fill out three invitations: one to Penny, one to Dev and Niall, and one to Baz.

None of them will go to someone that will make this hard to undo. Only to the people to whom this can be somewhat easily explained to.

I slide them into the envelopes before packing everything else back into the box and slipping out the door again, this time headed to the post office.

It is a little strange to send mail to my own flat, but I need them to all arrive on the same day for this to work.

This at least gives me a couple of more days to figure out the rest of my plan.

This probably isn’t quite the romantic gesture that Ebb had in mind, but this will just be the beginning. It’s my way to show him that I’m serious about us, that I’d be willing to marry him today if he’d let me.

I know that there are better ways of going about this, but I need to do something big, something meaningful, and really, what else do I have to lose? I’ve already lost his friendship. The worst Baz can do to me at this point is never talk to me again, which is going to happen if I _don’t_ do something.

The next part is going to be a little more difficult. I’m going to have to get him to be in the same room with me so that we can hash everything out. There are so many feelings that have built up between us, good and bad, and so much that has gone unsaid. It’s going to take a while to work through all of that.

I just hope that Baz will be open to it.

***

Not long after I’ve returned from the post office, I find myself sitting across from Penny and Dev at the small kitchen table.

Penny got back from wherever she has been all day about an hour after I got back. I was sitting in my room, a welcome change from the living room, when she knocked lightly on my bedroom door before letting herself in.

She was wearing a serious expression, and I began to worry that she had somehow found that I had gone through the box and sent those cards, and when she spoke, I began to worry a little more.

“Hey, Simon,” she said softly. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, gesturing for her to join me on my bed.

“Actually, Dev is here, too, so I thought we could sit at the table instead.

“Oh,” I say, furling my brow in confusion. “Okay.

I knew that it was impossible that he could have received the save-the-date card that I sent out earlier, but I was struggling to come up with any other reason for why he would be here or why they would both want to talk to me about something.

But now here I am, sitting across from them, and I begin to wonder when they became a team — and when they decided to start plotting together.

They take turns speaking, explaining how they’ve been meeting up and what they’ve been talking about for a few days (so that’s where she’s been all day.) It’s almost like they wrote a script, switching off talking about different points in such an organized manner that I decide not to speak until they’re done so as not to break the flow that they’ve going.

It takes me a while to realize that their plan is to get me and Baz together. It’s surprising because I didn’t think either of them cared so much about whether Baz and I were together. What’s more surprising is they honestly believe that their plan will work.

It could be a good thing, though, because their plan will be a good second part to what I was trying to do. It might even be a better idea than what I would have come up with.

Although, I still have my doubts about it.

“Do you honestly think that he’ll talk to me after all of this?” I ask. “I got mad at him and ignored his calls. I haven’t even seen him since…” I shake my head, not wanting to think about that day anymore. I need to focus on the future and trying to make Baz a part of it. “I’m worried that I’m going to show up and have him immediately reject me without hearing me out.”

“You won’t know unless you try, Simon,” Penny says gently.

“You don’t get it. I’m pretty sure that he doesn’t want to be with me. From day one, that’s all he ever said to me. That it wouldn’t work between us. That we couldn’t be together. Maybe it’s time that I accept that.”

Instead of making me feel better about my plan to talk to Baz, talking all of this through with them is making it clearer that this isn’t going to work. Why would Baz agree to date me after all of this?

“Why don’t you just take a chance and see what happens?”

“I don’t want to face his rejection.” I don’t know that I can take it anymore. I’m already in enough pain. Why would I want to cause myself more of it?

“You don’t know that that will happen,” she says.

I shake my head. “I can’t risk it. It’s better this way.”

“How?”

“He likes you.” It’s the first time that Dev has spoken in a while now, and it catches me so off guard that I freeze, mouth open, the rest of my argument slipping away.

“Dev,” Penny says, giving him a warning look that I am personally very familiar with. “We agreed.”

“It’s the only way. We have to tell him the truth.”

“About what?” I ask.

“Baz has liked you for years,” Dev says, almost matter-of-factly. “He’d never admit it to you because he’s just as worried about rejection as you are, but he’s liked you for a long time.”

“Why should I believe you?” I ask. Even if we’ve grown friendlier, how do I know that Baz didn’t put him up to this so that he could break my heart even further?

But I know Penny would never go along with something like that. She wouldn’t intentionally hurt me, so either Dev lied to her, too, or there is some truth to what he’s saying.

“I’m one of his best friends. He told me how he felt, and I want him to be happy. If that means setting him up with the boy that we fought for years, so be it. As long as it gets him out of his flat.”

“Why wouldn’t he just tell me?” I wonder, not sure if I’m asking them or myself.

“For the same reason you wouldn’t tell him how you felt,” Penny says. “He was afraid to lose you.”

“How long have you known?” I ask her. “How he feels, I mean.”

“I suspected while you were fake dating, but I didn’t know for sure until after you proposed.”

I think about it for a long moment. I want to believe them. I want it to be true. But it’s difficult to believe that Baz could think of me that way. I have to at least try to find out if it’s true. I’ll regret it if I don’t.

“You really think that he’ll forgive me?” I ask warily, starting to give into that small bit of hope. “That he’ll give me a real chance?”

“You might have to apologize and talk through it with him,” Penny says, “but I’m fairly confident that he’ll come around.”

“I’ll do it. I-I’ll try to at least.”

“That’s all we’re asking you to do. We just want you to try.”

“Not now, though, right?” I ask. I need a couple of days to prepare myself. “Could we do it the day after tomorrow?”

“Of course. Whenever you’re ready. Just, don’t wait too long or he may be gone.”

“Right.”

They go over the details of their plan with me one more time, and once Dev has gone, I return to my room to try to figure out how I can make this right, what I can say to Baz to fix this.

I really screwed up, especially since I never returned his calls, but I really hope that I can make things right with him.

I want to be with Baz, and that won’t happen unless I fight for him.

I spend the night staring at my ceiling and remembering all of the good moments that I’ve had with Baz over the past several months. It’s like a montage of every moment where we forgot that what we were doing was a competition, and we just let our feelings rule us.

Those were my favorite moments with him.

We’d give in and forget for a while that it wasn’t real.

There was a lot of kissing involved in those moments.

It wasn’t just for show because most of it happened in our room or dark halls or any other secluded areas that we found ourselves in. It was like we couldn’t stay away from each other - and didn’t want to either.

When I was on my own again, I would blame it all on the fact that I was letting my feelings for him lead me to do this, but I wasn’t the only person pulling the other away from the crowd to kiss them.

We wouldn’t even say anything to each other. We didn’t need to. There would be a light tug on an arm, and then I’d find my lips pressed to his, out of the view of other people.

As we grew closer as friends, I found that I couldn’t stay away from him. The line blurred between what we were doing for the sake of competition and what we were doing simply because we wanted to.

I’d see him on the way to the class, and I felt like I _had_ to be near him. Occasionally, I gave into that urge and moved closer to him, my fingers wrapping around his wrist and tugging him away from prying eyes. I’d soon have him pushed against the wall, covered by shadows, and I’d be kissing him before he could protest.

There were other times when it was me who was suddenly pulled away from the crowd, Baz’s mouth on mine before I realized what was happening.

We’d pull away much too soon, avoiding each other’s eyes, and be on our way again, never saying a word about what happened.

It has continued to happen recently, even now that we’ve left school. Baz comes over to hang out, and we end up in my room, my fingers tangled in his hair and our tongues wrapped sensuously around each other.

There was one time that we got a little carried away in the kitchen, which Penny did not appreciate too much when she walked in and found me sitting on the countertop with Baz standing between my legs.

I thought that she would demand to know why we were doing that, but she seemed more concerned that we were doing it out in the open rather than in the privacy of my room.

Remembering it now, I can’t help but smile.

I loved those moments.

I loved being with Baz and not caring what anyone thought. I loved thinking that maybe there was a chance.

I want to experience that with him again, which is why I have to make things right with him. And soon.

Hopefully before those save-the-date cards arrive.

I can’t believe I actually sent those out. It was a stupid idea, and it is likely to have the opposite effect of what I wanted.

Rather than show Baz that I’m serious about the way that I feel about him, he will most likely see it as an attempt to continue the competition, much like what I did with the fake proposal.

I just have to hope that talking to him will help him see that it is absolutely serious, that I care about him and want more than this. I have to hope that he has grown to know me well enough not to think that I would do something like this to hurt him or continue a competition that I’ve despised for a long time now.

I need him to give me a chance to explain.

Otherwise, there may be no going back from this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simon and Baz try to work things out and see if there is a possibility of a future for them together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't mean to make you all wait so long for this chapter. I just got busy writing other things, and I had been hoping to have the epilogue finished before I posted this. Unfortunately, I'm not sure when/if I'll ever finish the epilogue, so for right now, I'm calling this the end of this fic. Maybe someday, I'll figure out how to get it done, but for now I am letting it go. I'm sorry, everyone.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter!

**Simon**

Penny and I have barely stepped into Dev and Niall’s flat before Dev starts questioning me.

“Hey, is this for real?”

“Is what for real?” Penny asks.

“Take a look,” he says, handing her something that I instantly recognize as the save-the-date card I sent out the other day.

“Simon!” She hisses, turning on me. “What have you done?”

“Nothing,” I say, but when she glares at me, I add, “Nothing that can’t be undone.”

“These were only meant to be templates. Who else did you send them to?”

“Just you three. And Baz. I was hoping that they hadn’t arrived yet.”

“When did you send these out?”

“Before you guys came to me with your plan. I was hoping that it would show Baz that I’m serious about him. I was trying to find a way to get him to talk to me about all of this.”

Penny shakes her head and squeezes her eyes shut while she apparently tries to process the sheer amount of stupidity of my actions.

“It’s fine,” She says after several quiet moments. “We’ll deal with it. Maybe Baz hasn’t seen it yet.”

“Let’s hope so,” Niall says, not unkindly. “Have you figured out what you’re going to say to him when he gets here?”

I shrug. “I’m just kind of hoping that something will come to me.”

“Really? That’s what you came up with yesterday,” Dev asks in a condescending tone that’s only a shadow of the way Baz used to talk to me, so it rolls off of me.

I’ve been trying to think of something to say to Baz ever since I stormed out of the flat, but I’ve still come up empty, which is exactly why I haven’t really tried to have contact with him since then.

Now, I’m kind of just hoping that when I see him, I will know what to say. I just need him to give me a chance.

“Ignore him,” Penny says, shooting him a glare that I have been on the receiving end of more times that I can count, so I feel for Dev a little as he turns away from us. “I’m sure you’ll be fine. Are you ready?”

“I’m not sure,” I admit.

I don’t think that this is something that you can really be ready for. How do you prepare for something that could possibly change your life in a big way?

**Penny**

I walk with Simon into the living room. He seems nervous. He keeps tugging at his clothes and running his hand through his ever-messy hair.

I don’t think that I have ever seen him this nervous. Not even when we went up against various creatures that seemed to be coming after Simon specifically for years. I wouldn’t say that he kept a level head during those times, but he did what he could, fought them to the very end.

“Are you ready?” I ask Simon, one last time.

He doesn’t hesitate this time. “Yes.”

I think maybe getting away from Dev and Niall helped him to calm down. They aren’t exactly the people I would have chosen to make plans with, but I have to admit that they aren’t bad company either.

“Okay. I’ll go let them know,” I tell him before giving his arm a reassuring squeeze. “You can do this.”

“Penny, wait,” he says quietly. For a moment, I’m worried that he’s about to back out, but then he smiles at me. It’s not the bright smile he usually has, but that’s understandable given the circumstances.

“Yeah, Simon?”

“Thank you. For your support in all of this, for accepting it so easily, and for being my best friend.”

I smile at him. “Of course. I’d do anything for you. Now, go get him.”

He nods, and I leave him alone in Dev and Niall’s living room.

We’re using their flat for this because we thought it would be easier to come up with a way to get Baz here than to get him to return to mine and Simon’s flat.

When I step inside their bedroom, I find them making out on their bed, Niall’s hands in Dev’s hair and Dev’s arms wrapped around Niall’s waist.

“Come on,” I groan. “I left for two minutes.”

“Sorry,” Niall says bashfully, pulling away, but Dev shrugs unapologetically, smiling at him.

“You two are just like Simon and Baz. Can’t keep your hands off of each other, even when there are other people around.”

“Seriously?” Dev asks. “They made out in front of you? I thought it was all pretend.”

“That’s just what they kept telling themselves.”

“They really were clueless, weren’t they?”

“No less clueless than you were before we got together,” Niall says, and the look that he gives Dev makes me worried that they might start kissing again if I don’t interrupt them.

Luckily, there’s a knock at the door then, which is Dev’s cue to leave the room.

“Don’t you think it’s weird that we’ll all just be sitting here while they’re working it out in there?” Niall asks after a minute of awkward silence between where he tries to right his clothes.

“I mean, it’s your flat, and I’m basically just here for support.”

“You mean we’ll be able to eavesdrop on them and know what they’re doing.”

“Or we’ll be able to step in if things start to go south.” It’s Dev who says this, reentering the room behind me.

That was fast, but it has to be a good thing, right? It means that he didn’t have to fight with Baz to get him to stay here.

I watch as Niall’s eyes light up, simply from seeing Dev again, and it reminds me a lot of the way that Simon looks at Baz. I don’t think that either of them realize that it happens. It’s just a reaction to be around each other. It’s like they’re almost as oblivious as Simon and Baz.

Almost. At least Niall managed to admit that he has feelings for Dev without having to go through all of these hoops.

“What’d you say to get Baz here, by the way?” Niall asks as Dev crosses the room to sit next to him.

I stay close to the door, trying to catch what Baz and Simon are saying in the other room, but I can’t hear them. I wouldn’t be surprised if Baz cast a spell so that we wouldn’t be able to hear them.

“That there was an emergency. I may have slightly implied that you were injured.”

“He’s going to be pissed.”

“I’m hoping that seeing Simon will soften some of the anger.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Niall says, shaking his head.

Maybe we should have come up with a way to get Baz here that wouldn’t cause him to be worried about his friend. That might make things not go well if he feels like he’s been tricked into getting here. Which he has, but I’d rather him not already be angry before Simon even gets a chance to say something.

I suppose it’s too late at this point. Now, it’s all up to Simon.

**Baz**

Before Dev called me, I was lying in bed, where I had been all day.

He wouldn’t give me details about what was happening, but he said that something was wrong with Niall and that I needed to get over to their flat as fast as possible.

I hurried to leave my flat even though I wasn’t completely convinced that something was really wrong with either of them. If there was, I doubt they would call me over to their flat, but they’re my friends, so I’m going. Also, it’s a good excuse to get out of the house.

I didn’t even bother slicking back my hair like I usually do. I tied it back messily into a bun and got into my car. If it is an emergency, I can’t waste time doing my hair.

Now, I’m driving over to Dev and Niall’s flat, and I don’t know what to expect when I get there.

Sometimes, I still can’t believe that they are a couple.

I mean, I can see the chemistry between them, how happy they are in each other’s presence, but I never would have guessed that there was anything romantic between them. I also can’t believe how long they managed to keep it a secret from me.

Apparently, without me there to stand between the two of them at the beginning of the year, when I had been kidnapped, they were able to come to terms with how they felt about each other.

I’m happy for the two of them, I am.

But it’s hard not to look at them and wish that it could be that way for me and Simon.

I wish that it wasn’t so hard just to talk to him.

I just want something to work between us.

I pull up in front of their building and shut off the car before reaching for my phone where it sits along with the mail that I retrieved on my way to my car. One of the envelopes catches my attention in the midst of all the junk mail.

There’s no return address on it, but the color of the envelope, a deep shade of red, looks familiar.

My curiosity piqued, I grab the envelope and open it as I make my way up the stairs to their flat. There’s a card inside, and the words “Save the Date” jump out at me.

I rarely receive invitations to anything, and when I do, it is never through the mail.

As I look closer at the care and read the rest of the writing on it, I falter on the final step and just barely manage to catch myself on the railing before I fall down the stairs.

I am going to kill Snow.

**Simon**

I pace nervously back and forth across Dev and Niall’s living room while I wait, and when there are three sharp taps at the door, I freeze.

My heart starts pounding in my chest, and it feels like I’m running out of air.

This was a mistake.

Baz is going to be pissed when he sees me, and it’s going to turn into a big fight. One that will result in him and I officially being done with each other.

I can’t believe I thought that this was a good idea. I have to go tell Penny that I changed mind, that I don’t want to do this.

“You okay, Simon?” Dev asks as he passes by me on his way to the door, his voice surprisingly gentle. We all agreed that it was best if Dev answered the door since there was a large possibility of Baz turning away as soon as he saw me.

He stops just beside the door, waiting for my response.

“Y-yeah,” I tell him.

“You’ll be fine,” he says reassuringly. “We’re just in the other room if you need us.”

“Okay.” I nod once at him, and he turns to open the door.

A moment later, I hear Baz’s voice.

“Where’s Niall? What’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing. He’s fine,” Dev says, and I watch as he ushers Baz inside the flat.

“What do you mean? When you called me, you said that there was an emergency.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t think you would come unless you thought the situation was dire.”

“You lied so that I would come hang out with you?” He asks, sounding put out and just a smidge angry.

“Not exactly…”

That’s when they start moving closer to me, and I can see it in Baz’s eyes when his eyes finally land on me.

His expression turns stone cold, shutting out any worry that he may have had for his friend. He doesn’t look angry, but I think I would prefer that because at least if he was angry, it would mean that he cared, that he had some kind of feeling about seeing me.

“What are you doing here?” Even his voice is emotionless. I expected him to give me his best sneer when he saw me, but somehow this is worse.

“I wanted to talk to you, and I didn’t know how else to get you to see me,” I say, watching as Dev edges around us and out of the room.

“Oh, so now you want to talk?”

It’s a fair point, but it still stings. I try to respond, but Baz keeps going.

“We could have talked days ago, but you decided to storm out like a child and then ignore my phone calls.”

“That’s not fair. How could I talk to you when you were treating this like nothing but a competition?”

“You know what’s not fair? You breaking off our engagement like that without trying to talk through whatever it was that was bothering you.”

“It wasn’t a real engagement, remember?” Because I can’t help myself. Because I can feel all of this anger and pain boiling inside of me, but he is standing here, acting like he couldn’t care less.

“As if I could forget. That doesn’t explain why you did _this_ , though.” He thrusts his hand out so that I can see what he’s holding.

It’s the save-the-date card that I sent him.

“I can explain,” I tell him.

“What explanation could you possibly have for doing this? Was it to try and upset me?”

“No, that wasn’t it at all. I was trying to show you that I care about--.”

“Some way to show you care,” he says, cutting me off, but a new emotion flickers across his face, quickly gone again before I can figure out what it is. “Sending out invitations for a fake wedding to all of our classmates.”

“That’s not what I did,” I say in a near-shout, unable to cover up my frustration. I take a deep breath and say, “I didn’t come here to fight.”

“Then, why _are_ you here?”

It’s irritating that he can act so calm, that he can have this conversation without feeling anything. I want him to feel something. I want him to show me that I’m not making a mistake here, that there is a chance that this could work out, even if it’s a small one.

“To _talk_. The one thing that we can never seem to figure out how to do. I just wanted to talk about this, about everything.”

“Okay, talk.” He crosses his arms and leans against the wall, like he hasn’t got a care in the world.

I tear a hand through my hair, trying to steady myself.

I could say any number of things right now, but none of them would come out right, and Baz would find a way to twist them around. The best thing to do is to not beat around the bush, to come right out and say the one thing I’ve been dying to say for months. The one thing that scares me more than anything else to say.

“I love you, Baz.”

There. I finally said it. I love him, and I’m so afraid that I’m about to lose him for good.

His whole body goes still, then he stands up straight, back going rigid. He could kill me now, and no one would be able to stop him. (It makes me miss the Anathema for a moment.)

“That isn’t funny,” he sneers, and he sounds angry, scary angry now that he’s finally let the cold mask fall away.

“I wasn’t joking,” I tell him, resisting the urge to back away as he stalks toward me. “I mean it. I’m in love with you.”

“Why now?” He asks. He stops moving once he’s just a couple of feet away from me..

“What do you mean?”

“Why did you wait until now to tell me? We’ve been fake engaged for _months_. Why did you wait so long to try to talk to me?”

“Because I was afraid.” As long as I’m being honest about how I feel, I decide to tell him the truth about everything. “I thought you could never feel the same. I was supposed to break up with you back at Watford, but I couldn’t because it felt too real. I couldn’t end this thing between us, even though it was fake, because I had fallen for you, and I didn’t want to let you go. But I was so worried that you wouldn’t feel the same.”

“And now, you think I do?”

“I hope you do,” I say earnestly. “That’s all I have. Hope.”

“Hope that what? I’ll want to be with you?” He takes another step forward. I continue to stand my ground, waiting for him to hit me, either with his fist or a spell.

“Yes. I thought that maybe we could give this a real chance.”

“Really, Snow? Who’s to say that I haven’t moved on from you? Who’s to say that finding out what it’s like to actually date you didn’t make me realize that it wasn’t something that I wanted?”

I feel like I’m going to crumble to pieces at those words. He’s even gone back to calling me Snow, which shouldn’t hurt so much, but it does. It’s like there’s a wall between us again.

Was I really such a terrible boyfriend that it would make him not have feelings for me anymore? (If he ever really did.)

I thought that he liked what was happening with us, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe he’s just that great of an actor and was only playing the game.

I was wrong to get my hopes up, and I wish that I hadn’t agreed to doing this.

I have to get out of here. I can’t let Baz have the satisfaction of seeing me falling apart.

**Baz**

The look on Simon’s face when I say those words nearly breaks my resolve.

I don’t mean any of it, but I want him to hurt the way that I have.

What makes him think that he can just apologize, and everything will be okay? We’ve been doing this thing for months, and all of a sudden, he wants to make it real?

I realize that I’m putting all the blame on him, and that isn’t fair.

This is just as much my fault as it is his. I let it go on like this, too. I should have just come out and told him how I really felt a long time ago. I should have done it the night before he proposed.

Then maybe we could have spent all of these months dating for real, instead of tiptoeing around each other, trying to hide our true feelings for each other.

Simon looks like he’s about to bail, and I can’t let that happen. I might be angry, but I don’t want to let him get away again.

No matter how upset I am, I can’t let this opportunity slip away.

Here he is, offering me everything that I’ve ever wanted from him, and instead of being happy about it, I’m pushing him away with every cruel thing that I can think of to say.

“Okay,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry. I-I’ll just go.”

He turns away from me and steps towards the door, but I can’t let him go. I can’t let it end like this.

“Simon, wait.”

I reach out to grab his arm, and for a moment, I’m sure that he’s going to keep wrench his arm out of my grasp and keep walking, but then he freezes.

**Simon**

I want to walk out, be done with all of this, but I can’t.

Even if there is the slightest bit of hope that I could have something real with Baz, I have to try. I can’t let him go.

I slowly turn to face him, and he drops his hand.

“Why now?” He asks, his voice lacking the anger and distaste that it held a moment ago when he was telling me that he could be over me.

“Why do you keep asking that?”

“Because you let it go on like that for so long. How am I supposed to know for sure that this time it’s real?”

“No. You don’t get to put all of the blame on me. You were just as much a part of everything as I was. You could have told me that you wanted it to be real a long time ago too.”

“You wanted to end it. You never acted like it was anything more than a competition.”

“Because I didn’t know how you felt. You’ve liked me for years, and still, you never said anything.”

“I’m going to kill Dev.”

“At least he told me the truth.”

“You proposed to me _in front of the whole school_.”

“And you were supposed to end it months ago.”

We are still arguing, but it doesn’t feel as heavy as it did a moment ago.

He asked me to stay. We just need to work through all of this, work through all of our doubts about each other.

“I didn’t want to. I wanted to be with you, Simon, don’t you see that? It killed me every day to pretend to be engaged to you, but I kept telling myself that it was better than nothing. And those things you said when you proposed...it killed me to know you didn’t mean any of it.”

“I meant every word of it. I know that it was a stupid thing to do, but I meant everything I’ve said to you. I don’t want to fight. I want to spend my life with you. I don’t want to lose you. Not like this. I want a real chance to show you that I’m a good boyfriend.”

“I don’t know if I can do that, Simon. I don’t know if I can risk you changing your mind.”

“I won’t change my mind,” I tell him, but he looks like he still doesn’t believe me. “Do you want to know why I finally snapped the other day? It was because you were planning this beautiful wedding, and I so badly wanted it to be our wedding. I wanted all of it, but it wasn’t real, so I had to put an end to it. Admittedly, I could have gone about it a bit differently, but I didn’t know how to tell you how I felt. But that’s what I’m doing now. I’m telling you that I’m in this for real.”

“Wait, are you asking me to date you? Or are you asking me to marry you?”

“Just date, for now. I think we need to start this whole thing over and do it all for real. I want to be your boyfriend, Baz.” And then maybe your husband, I add inside my head.

He’s silent for a long time, and I brace myself for the ‘no’ that I know is coming, but then he surprises me.

“Yes. I want to be your boyfriend, Simon.”

“I’ll still be a better boyfriend,” I say, smiling at him. 

“Actually, I’m pretty sure that I won that one.” He takes a few, slow steps towards me, and it’s obvious he’s fighting back his own smile.

“Mm,” I hum. “I gave that to you. You didn’t actually win.”

“I suppose this is our do-over.”

“And we’ve got all the time that we need to do this.”

“I’ll win.”

“We’ll see about that.” I reach up to cup the side of his face, then let my hand slide farther back, my fingers slipping through his hair. “Why are we still fighting?” I whisper.

“It’s kind of our thing.”

“I think we need a better thing.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

“Like this.” Then, I kiss him, and it’s the first real kiss that we’ve shared during this whole year that we’ve spent together.

**Penny**

“It worked!” Dev exclaims, walking into the room.

He had snuck back down the hall a couple of minutes ago to check up on Simon and Baz, make sure that they hadn’t decided to kill each other.

“We knew it would,” I say. “They just needed a bit of help getting there.”

Dev ignores me, striding across the room to Niall and kissing him, apparently caught up in the happiness of this moment.

“Ugh. Get a room.”

“This _is_ our room,” Dev says before going back to kissing his boyfriend.

“Right. Well, I’m leaving now.”

“Goodbye,” Niall says cordially, tearing himself away from Dev long enough to wave goodbye.

I walk into the living room on my way to the door, and I find yet another couple making out.

Is this going to be life now? Watching other people kiss?

It makes me wish that my boyfriend lived closer.

I clear my throat and Simon and Baz jump apart, wearing matching goofy grins.

Simon turns to look at me, but Baz continues to stare at Simon with a sickeningly sweet expression.

“I’m leaving,” I say. “Simon, did you need a ride back to our flat, or are you good?”

He glances at Baz, and his grin widens as he says, “I’m good.”

“Alright, I’ll see you later then.”

He’s too busy staring at Baz to respond. They’ve already lost themselves in each other, and they haven’t even managed to find their way to somewhere more private.

I’m happy for them. They are finally happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone for reading this fic and sticking with me even when I took long breaks. I appreciate each and every one of you <3

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you @wo2ash for beta reading!


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